1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display, and more particularly, to a liquid crystal display that can endure external pressure without a reduction of elasticity intensity.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (LCD) is one of the most widely used flat panel displays. An LCD includes two panels provided with field-generating electrodes, such as pixel electrodes and a common electrode, and a liquid crystal (LC) layer interposed therebetween. The LCD displays images by applying voltages to the field-generating electrodes to generate an electric field in the LC layer, which determines orientations of LC molecules in the LC layer to adjust polarization of incident light.
In the LCDs, a plurality of active spacers is used to maintain a uniform cell gap between an upper panel and a lower panel, where bead spacers or column spacers may be used as the active spacers.
When using bead spacers, the manufacturing process may be simplified and easy. However, because the beads spacers are floating, they are moved with the liquid crystal material during the injection of the liquid crystal material. Therefore, when the movement pressure and the movement distance are large, the panel may be curved such that light leakage occurs. Because the column spacers are formed by a photolithography process, differently from the bead spacers, the column spacers are formed in predetermined positions. However, because the column spacers have a low elasticity intensity and do not endure a large load compared with the bead spacers, the column spacers or underlayers may collapse when the liquid crystal display experiences external pressure, causing spots to occur.
The density and scale of the column spacers, or the endurance quality of the column spacers, can be improved to endure increased pressure or load. However, if the density and scale of the column spacers are improved, the elasticity intensity may be reduced.